Stay Down
by tarsus4survivor
Summary: The refugees from the Apocalypse World don't like having an angel running around freely in the bunker. Cas gets hurt and Dean and Sam are there to patch him up. Each chapter is a different version of the same trope; a collection of one-shots, some better than others.
1. Chapter 1

Cas doesn't tell Dean and Sam when the withering looks of the people from the apocalypse world turn to shoves and shouts. Doesn't tell when shoves turn to fists or the fists turn to boots. Not that he believes their words. That the brothers won't care. That they'll join. That Cas deserves it. They gave away his room, didn't they?

Cas isn't sure why he doesn't tell. Only that he is tired of confrontation. He learns to be wary of long hallways and empty rooms and dark corners. Learns to surround himself with others, not that he could be said to be with them. Only in the same vicinity. Near enough for shouts to be heard.

But at night the bunker turns empty; the hallways and storage rooms and stairwells.

He learns to avoid the stairwells first. His grace is too weak to prevent the limp the next day and that makes them angrier.

He is taught the dangers of large rooms stacked with books and artifacts next. The doors are too thick to let any sound of crashing shelves or thudding tools escape.

He takes to roaming the corridors and discovers the unforgiving nature of stone. The lesson stays with his head and back and hand for two days before it's repeated.

Angels don't sleep. Castiel wishes to. He is tired. Always tired. He's not safe inside so he opens the door, flinching at the sound, and steps outside. He sits on the steps and stares until the sun grows ready to rise. He slips back inside, and surrounds himself with the presence of others. He feels he can breathe again.

They're angry. He can see it in their eyes and fists and feel it in the shoves as they walk past. They watch him, but he doesn't leave the cushioned protection of crowds. They try to make him; asking for his help downstairs and in the dungeon and with unknown artifacts. He doesn't leave. They grow angrier. Louder.

Dean is staring at him and them from the other side of the room, a book open on the table in front of him. There's a pinch to his eyebrows. Cas meets his eyes and shakes his head. Sam comes up behind Dean, also staring at Cas. He sets a hand on his brother's shoulder and whispers something to him. Eventually the angry men fall back into silence, though none go to do the jobs for which they'd asked for help from Castiel.

When the bunker goes to sleep, Castiel slips back outside. It's cold, but so are the stone walls and hard floors inside.

He keeps going outside. Night after night. Eventually they find him.

Jon is the leader. Dark and angry and his presence large. He doesn't hold back. Castiel takes it for the most part, because they grow tired faster that way. Because it makes them less angry. But he's robbed them of their chance to hurt him and they intend to make up for it. When the cuffs come out, he starts to fight back. He shoves Jon away and punches another one, scrambling to his feet, pulling his blade.

He is tired, and too slow to rise. Jon buries an angel blade in his side and then someone else yanks his blade away and locks the enochian engraved handcuffs around his wrists. They take his shoes and socks. Then they cut off his trenchcoat and shirt and thankfully nothing more. Jon holds the blade to his back over his heart and tells him to walk.

They go for hours. Through the woods outside the bunker. Cas's bare feet on twigs and rocks and cold unforgiving ground. His side is bleeding, drenching his pants, but the hand he presses over the wound doesn't seem to do anything. He trips a few times. Or is shoved. He crashes down and is too slow to rise because they start to kick him each time. Until he feels he can't rise. But then Jon is there pressing the blade to his neck and yanking him back up. They walk. It doesn't matter how Cas fights back, he can't get the upper hand.

Castiel loses all sense of time, his grace sputtering to keep him from bleeding out at his side and internally. Finally they stop.

Jon shoves him hard into a tree and Cas shatters against it. When he turns and rises, Jon stabs the blade into his thigh up to the hilt in one swift move, Cas too tired and slow to prevent it. "Don't come back," Jon says, and they tie him to the tree and leave him there.

It takes until sunrise for Cas to work himself free. His phone was in his coat so he can't call anyone. By the time he forces himself to his feet, hands still bound in front of him, his hurt leg shaking, he isn't sure he wants to go back. He does anyway, his feet burning more with each step. They're bleeding now too. He limps along and it's nearly sunset when he sees the bunker again.

The door is locked. He doesn't dare knock. Instead he musters what's left of his grace and unlocks it before stepping dizzily inside. He's leaving footprints so he grabs a random jacket by the door and walks backward, clearing the blood as he goes, leaning on the walls as much as he can until he reaches his destination. It's quiet inside so he slips through the door of the room—he has to unlock it with his grace—that Sam and Dean now share.

He cleans his footsteps all the way to the other side of the bed. Against the far wall is a cot. Cas sits on the floor against the bed and stares at it. His wrists are bleeding too, he realizes, when he moves the bloody jacket to his other side.

He doesn't know what to do. If he leaves the room they'll find him so he doesn't leave. The thought of going back to his feet makes him want to throw up so he stays sitting. He presses one hand against his side and the other against his leg. The manacles barely allow it.

And he stares at the cot in the corner, thinking of his own bed—his old bed—and how angels don't sleep. About how much he wants to sleep.

When the door shakes he stops breathing. He curls tighter against the bed, knowing he isn't immediately visible but will be and that he's too slow to hide anywhere else.

The door opens. Someone walks in a few steps. Cas shuts his eyes and prays for them to leave. The feet stop with a gasp. "Cas?"

Cas sobs. It's Sam.

The Winchester is harried movement, coming around the bed and dropping next to Cas, eyes wide, hands moving.

Cas is bleeding. On the floor and his pants and the mattress against his back. "I'm sorry," he says.

"What?" asks Sam, "What…. What?" He's been ghosting over tattered flesh and stopped to inspect the manacles, but then he's drawn by Cas's blood-soaked hands, prying them away to curse at the wounds beneath. "What the—Shit."

Sam grabs the balled up jacket beside Castiel and pushes it, squelching, against the angel's side. "I'll need a new coat," says Cas, muttering almost to himself, "and shoes."

Sam's head jerks to look at Castiel's feet. His face turns green. "Oh my god."

"No," says Cas, "I'm—"

"Cas," says Sam, and something in his voice makes Cas feel bad.

"I'm sorry."

"_Cas_." Sam pinches his eyes shut for a split second. Then he opens them and presses down harder. "What the _hell_?"

It's not a question, not really, but Cas doesn't want to wait for other real ones. "What about h—"

Sam shakes his head, horror curling his features. "Cas," he says again. "What did this?"

Cas just stares at him.

"Cas. Cas, are you with me?"

"I'm right here, Sam. Are you not?"

"Oh my god." Sam's hands are moving again, but this time they're ghosting over his own clothing, pressing at the pockets. He wrenches a phone from his jeans, stabs at it, and lifts it to his ear. "Pick up, pick up, pick up, pick up, pick up."

In a moment of terrified confusion, Cas thinks he's talking to him. He moves to stand. Sam shoves at him, "Stay down." He sounds scared—desperate—instead of angry.

Cas slumps back down. "I'm sorry."

Sam shakes his head. He drops the phone. He pulls Cas's hands over the stained, drenched jacket. "Stay down." He rises.

Cas fumbles toward him. He's leaving, he's leaving. They'll find him. His soaked hand wraps around Sam's ankle, the only thing he can reach, the manacles clanging.

Sam looks down.

Cas immediately pulls back his hand. He's ruined the cloth. "I'm sorry."

Sam crouches back down and moves the jacket back onto the angel's side, slow and gentle and careful. He pulls Cas's hands back over it. "For what?"

"I…" he stares at Sam. Sam, looking at him kindly, his hand at the wound in his leg, and the other at the dark bruises below his ribs and then at his tattered feet. Trying to fix him.

Sam looks up to meet his eyes. "Cas?"

Cas shakes his head. "I…"

"Okay," says Sam, and he doesn't seem quite so frantic. "I have to go get the first aid kit. You gonna be okay?"

Cas stares at him. He shakes his head. "I…what?"

"It's in the library, Cas. I'd like to go look for Dean too, but if you're not gonna be okay by yourself, I'll just get the kit and race back here. Two minutes."

Cas just stares at him, blank-faced and not understanding.

"Cas."

"I…" Cas doesn't finish. Doesn't know what he's meant to say.

Sam reaches out and inspects the manacles again. "You don't know where the keys to these are, do you?"

Cas shakes his head.

"How's your grace?"

"I can't… I don't know."

"Okay. That means I need to find a lock pick. There are some in the impala…"

Cas just stares at him.

Sam carefully releases the manacles. He sighs and picks up his phone again, puts it up to his ear. "Come on, come on." And then his face grows darker. "Goddammit, Dean. Something happened to Cas. I need your help. Get to our room the moment you get this."

He drops the phone. "Look at me, Cas."

Cas does.

"I need to go get the first aid kit. Don't move. I'll lock the door behind me." He picks the phone up and settles it in Cas's blood-soaked lap. "If I'm not back in two minutes, call Dean and then Bobby and then whoever the hell you know we can trust, okay? But don't move."

Cas stares at him. "Okay."

"Can you tell me what I just said?"

"Two minutes. Call Dean."

"And then Bobby. Okay. I'll be right back, Cas." He presses Cas's hands down where they've loosened. "Keep pressure on that. Okay. Two minutes."

And then he's gone.

And Cas doesn't know how to tell how much time has passed. So he just stares at the phone.

The door shakes. Sound comes muffled through the frame but Cas doesn't decipher it. He stares at the phone. Has it been two minutes?

The door snicks open and someone walks in. "Sammy?"

It's Dean.

Dean sucks in a harsh breath. "Cas?"

Cas looks up. "I'm supposed to call you," he says, and looks back down at the phone, "Do I still call you?"

Dean drops down next to him, a hand on his shoulder. "What happened? You okay? Where's Sam?"

Cas stares at him.

Dean ghosts over his head and ribcage and keeps going, "Where's all this blood coming from?"

"Two minutes?"

"What?" Dean's found the wound in his side.

"Has it—do I call you?"

"Cas, I'm right here."

Footsteps come pounding down the hallway and stumbling into the room. "Dean, thank god." The door closes.

Dean looks up at Sam's voice. "What the hell happened?"

Cas tries to get up to find Sam but Dean holds him down. "I… was that two minutes?"

Sam hurries over and drops down, setting a first aid kit on the floor.

"You know what he's talking about?" asks Dean.

Sam hands something sharp to Dean.

"I told him to try calling you if I wasn't back in two minutes."

Dean pulls Cas's hands onto his own lap to pick at the manacles. "What happened?"

Sam shakes his head. "I found him like this." He's pressing something over Cas's bleeding thigh.

The manacles drop. Dean settles Cas's hands back in his lap. "Cas?"

Cas turns to stare at him.

"What happened?"

Cas shakes his head.

"Yeah," says Sam, "That's basically all I got. I think he's in shock."

"He's cold," says Dean, and the older Winchester is frowning. "Someone attacked him? Was he out somewhere?"

"I don't know." Sam scoots the first aid kit across the floor and addresses Dean, "Help me move him to the bed."

They hoist him up at the joints. Knees and shoulders and spine. Castiel goes with them. "The phone," he says, because it falls with a clatter onto the floor. "I have to call Dean."

Dean lays him carefully back, "I'm right here, Cas. You don't have to call me."

"Right. Sorry."

"Stop," says Sam. "Stop apologizing. It's okay, Cas. You're gonna be okay."

"Right. Sor—Right." And then, "I'll need a new phone, Dean. Dean, I—they—my trenchcoat."

"It's okay, Cas. We'll get you a new coat and phone once we finish patching you up, alright?"

"And shoes," Sam says softly.

Dean glances down. His face darkens. "And shoes. God, Cas, what happened?"

Cas shakes his head. "I'm—I can't tell you—I…" he's choking on the words.

Dean rubs his neck. "Shhh, okay, Cas. You don't have to tell me right now. Where's your grace at?"

Cas frowns. "Inside of me?"

"How is it? Why aren't you healing?"

Cas looks down at his blood-soaked skin. "I'm… healing."

"Yeah? Doesn't look like it."

"There's… internal blee—" Cas cuts himself off. "It's slow," he says.

"You're bleeding internally?" Sam ghosts his ribcage, "Where? Is it really healing?"

Cas looks at him, face pinching. "I don't… it's inside me. I am… healing."

"Okay. Okay." Sam pulls back.

Cas's hands are shifted when Dean goes to clean his side. They hit the bed coverings. "I'm bleeding," he says.

"No shit," says Dean.

"The bed—" he tries to roll but the brothers don't let him—"I can't… it'll stain."

Dean's hand stutters. "God, Cas. Sam doesn't care. I don't care."

Sam nods. "Just stay down."

"Were you attacked inside the bunker?" asks Dean, "Do we need to be worrying about demons or something?"

Cas stares at him. The contours of his face, smooth and deep and dark. "No...demons," he says.

"No demons? Something else?"

"I…" Cas shakes his head, "don't…"

"Angels, maybe?" Sam is cleaning the wound in his thigh.

Cas shakes his head. "Just me. Just me, just me, just me, just me, just me."

"Okay. Okay, Cas. What attacked you?" Dean is at the wound in his side.

Cas shakes his head. "Just me."

"No way you did this to yourself, Cas." Sam glances down. "What happened to your feet? You walk somewhere?"

"Here," he says, "just here. My wings… Sam, my wings..."

"Yeah, you haven't flown in a while, Cas. Who put those cuffs on you?"

"Jon."

Dean stiffens. Stumbles. "Jon?"

Cas nods. Then shakes his head. "I'm sorry. It's just me. It's just me. It's just me."

"Apocalypse world Jon?"

Cas shrugs. "I don't think he likes me. He said…" Cas looks up at Dean. "Do you like me?"

Dean chokes. His fingers stutter.

Sam sets a hand on Cas's leg. "Of course he likes you. We both like you."

But Cas is staring at Dean. And Dean is silent.

Sam elbows him. Dean stills his hands and looks at Cas. "You're family, Cas. We like you."

"Oh. Jon said…" Cas shakes his head. "But you like me."

"Yeah, Cas. Was it just Jon?"

Cas shakes his head, "Never just…"

"Cas?" Sam's stitching now, but the area is numb.

"What did you do to me?"

Sam's eyes widen. "Nothing, Cas, I—"

"You poisoned me?"

Sam lifts his hands, trying to placate.. "No. Cas, look at me. Look at me."

Cas looks. "It was a trick. You don't like me. You—did you help them? The cuffs—I don't… Dean?"

"Shhhh." Dean's rubbing Cas's shoulder. "We like you, Cas. We're not trying to hurt you. We like you. Sam's just stitching up your leg. He numbed it so it wouldn't hurt." When Cas relaxes back with a long breath, Dean asks, "Who's them? You know their names?"

Cas shrugs. "Just me."

"What's that mean, Cas? What do you mean, 'just me'?"

"It's me. It's my fault. It's just me. Not them. Just me."

"It's not your fault, Cas." Sam is careful with his voice. His movements. Kind. "What did Jon say?"

Cas shakes his head. "It's just me."

"Okay," says Dean. "But who are they?"

Cas shakes his head. "Jon. Jon. John. John. Stamos," he says, "Why do I know that name?"

Dean doesn't look up. "'Cause metadouche downloaded Jurassic Park into your skull."

"Right," Cas says, "Right. Sorry."

Sam has moved to his feet. Dean has moved to his head.

"Douche, douche, douche, douche."

"Okay," says Dean, "You can stop now. You're obviously not coherent enough for this conversation."

"I'm tired," says Cas, "but you stole my bed because I don't sleep."

Sam doesn't hesitate. His movements don't falter. "You can have my bed, Cas."

"But I'm bleeding."

"So you should have two beds," Sam says.

"No." Cas shakes his head harshly, "No, I'm _bleeding_."

"Three beds," says Dean, "and a mountain of pillows."

Cas looks at him aghast. "No," he says.

Dean grins. "Four beds?"

"No beds. No beds. No beds."

Dean is still smiling. "Shhhh. Okay, Cas. Just one bed. Sam's bed."

"No beds."

Dean raises an eyebrow. "But then where will you sleep?"

Cas face furrows at that. He turns to Sam, "Where will I sleep? Sam, where will I sleep?"

"In your bed," says Sam, "right here."

"I don't have a bed."

"Yes you do." Sam nods. "You're on it right now."

"Oh." Cas shifts his arms, feeling the sheets. "Is this my bed? Do I sleep here?"

"Yep."

Cas stares up at the ceiling. "I like my bed."

"Okay, Cas," says Dean.

The brothers keep patching him up. Cas's eyes start to flutter but he keep jerking himself awake.

"How 'bout you go to sleep, Cas." Dean is wrapping bandages around the angel's wrist.

Cas shakes his head. "They'll find me."

"Me and Sam are right here. You're safe."

Cas shakes his head. "They always find me. They'll be mad because I wasn't supposed to come back."

"Come back?" Sam repeats, frowning.

Cas just nods, eyes rolling.

Dean sets Cas's arm gently on the bed and leans over to grab the other one. "From where?"

Cas shrugs. He nuzzles the back of his head into the pillow.

"That's how you hurt your feet? You had to walk back from somewhere?"

Cas bobs his head up and down. "All night." His eyes slide closed. He jerks his head to the side and pops them back open.

Dean purses his lips. "Must be tired then. Why don't you go to sleep?"

"They'll find me."

"You trust me and Sam?"

Cas nods. He pulls at the wrist in Dean's hand, looks down, and frowns. He raises his other hand instead, rubbing at his eye.

"Trust us to look out for you?"

Cas's arm flops back down. "What does that mean?"

"We'll watch over you, Cas. Go to sleep."

"You'll watch…" Cas frowns, "...over me?" he asks, voice small.

Sam nods. "Yep. All night. Nobody's gonna find you, Cas. You're safe."

"Is it night?"

Dean hums affirmatively. "So you better go to sleep, huh?"

Cas rubs his head against the pillow again. His eyes flutter closed. They stay closed. "Okay."

Slowly, his body relaxes.

Dean adjusts the blankets when he finishes bandaging Cas's arms, pulling them up over his torso. "He's still cold," he murmurs to Sam.

Sam is at the other end of the bed. "His feet are a mess. Ankle is swollen. Can't tell if it's broken or not."

Dean's shifts like he's making for the door, 'I'll get some ice' on the tip of his tongue. He stops mid-movement, mouth open. His mouth closes. He stares at the door. "Who hangs with Jon?"

Sam's jaw shifts. "Clark. Matt. Ron. Nate."

Dean nods. He slides to he door. "Stay with him."

"Dean. Don't confront them by yourself. We'll wait 'til Cas wakes up, get some names, get Bobby and Mary, and then take them on."

Dean keeps going. "I'm just going to get some ice," he says. "Lock the door behind me." He slips out.


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: This is just an alternate ending to the previous chapter, and probably not as good. No retribution yet, I'm afraid, but there will be in future chapters. In this version Jon and the gang drove Cas somewhere before leaving him tied up. Cas is just now returning._

* * *

Castiel makes it back to the bunker and knocks when it's locked. Midday, so the front room should be teeming with people. It's Sam who answers. His eyes widen and he steps outside, hands lifting toward Cas's blood-stained torso. "Cas?"

Cas steps forward and stumbles. Sam catches him, throwing an arm around his waist and going to lead him back inside. Jon blocks the way.

"Help me," says Sam.

Cas mumbles, "He won't help." He tries to shove away from Sam but Sam refuses to let go. "Go back in without me." He looks at Jon. "I'll go. Let him in."

Sam tightens his grip on Castiel. "What the hell? You're not going anywhere, Cas." He looks at Jon, "Move."

Jon gestures to someone inside. A member of his ever-present entourage.

It seems Sam is too close to the doorway-half inside it, actually. Someone throws something and it grazes Sam's shoulder. He stumbles backwards with Cas, "What the hell?!"

The door slams closed.

Castiel slumps downward and Sam slows his fall. "What's going on?"

"They don't like me," says Cas, and reaches out with two fingers to heal Sam. The other hand follows because they're still manacled together.

"Don't," says Sam, "fix yourself. It barely touched me."

"Okay." Castiel slumps back down.

"Shit," says Sam. He pulls Cas up. Or tries to. "Come on. We'll go around to the other door."

"I don't want to walk anymore," says Cas, "my feet hurt."

Sam looks down. His face distorts. An almost-horror ghosts across his mouth and eyes. "Yeah. Yeah, okay. Let's just go over to the wall, we can lean against it. Just a couple steps. Here, I'll carry you."

Cas sloughs him off, unsuccessfully. "I can walk." They stumble over to the wall and Cas drifts downward. He sits, feet spread out before him. "Go around, Sam. I'm fine."

"I'm not gonna leave you here, Cas. I could carry you, if you—"

"No," says Cas. "If I'm with you, they won't let you in."

Sam scoots closer, hands ghosting over the angel's darkened torso. "I don't care. They probably don't even know about that door."

"We can't take the chance. Just go, Sam."

Cas is shivering. Sam takes off his jacket and wraps it around him. Then he takes off his flannel and presses it, squelching, against the knife-wound in Cas's side. He folds his hand over the angel's leg and presses down there as well. "Sorry, Cas."

Cas groans. "They'll let you in. Tell them you don't like me. You can find Dean."

"And what if they decide to come out and deal with you while you're sitting out here alone and injured? What if they lock me in the dungeon because they don't trust me? We're sticking together, Cas. Here," he pulls the angel's hand over his bleeding side. "Keep pressure on that, I've gotta—" Sam pats down his pockets one-handed. He pulls out a phone and his face lights up. "Ha."

He brings it up to his ear. His face lights up even more. "Dean. Dean, we have a situation. A bunch of guys from the other world tortured Ca—"

Cas moans. "They didn't torture me."

Sam pulls the phone down a little. "That's sure as hell what it looks like."

"Tell him they surprised me."

"I'm not gonna say they surprised you, Cas. That makes it sound like a thirteen year old girl's birthday party. They freakin' tortured you. Locked you up and everything."

"They chained me to a tree and left me. I'd hardly call that torture."

"They chained you to a tree?!" And then, "Shut up Dean. I don't know." And then, "I want the full story, but first we need to get back inside. Dean, they locked us out of the bunker. I need you to come up and open the door for us."

"Sam, you could get in just fine if you—"

"Shut up, Cas. You're delirious from blood loss." And then, "No. No, we can't."

Dean says something that makes Sam roll his eyes. "Because Cas's feet are all torn up, that's why. Just come and get us." Sam listens for a beat and then turns to Cas. "Cas, who attacked you?"

"Attacked, see, that's a much more suitable word than tortured."

"Cas."

"They didn't bother to introduce themselves."

Sam raises an eyebrow. "You mean you never learned names?"

"I didn't need to. All I needed to learn was how to avoid—" he cuts himself off, because that's not what Sam meant and he hadn't meant to reveal that.

"Cas," says Sam, "please tell me this is the first time they've attacked you."

"Well…"

"Shit, Cas. You're telling me later."

Sam talks into the phone, "I saw Jon and Nate. Don't know who else. Just bring extra keys and don't come outside if you can help it. Throw the door wide open so everyone inside can see. Or you could clear the room instead, make everyone go downstairs or something… Yeah. Yeah, that works too. I just don't know how many there are."

"Five," says Cas. "In total. And three more who didn't...interfere."

Sam twists the phone up, "Cas says five active and three turning a blind eye… Yeah, okay. Bring some lock picks… They're not for the door."

Sam hangs up. "Dean's coming around through the other door. He's gonna help me get you down there."

Cas frowns. "I can walk."

Sam shakes his head and tilts forward, hands hovering. "You said you didn't want to, so you're not going to. We'll do a chair carry."

"I can walk," Cas says again, more firmly.

"We'll talk about it when Dean gets here." Sam tilts Cas's head forward, "What happened here?"

Cas shrugs. "Did something happen there?"

"You're bleeding."

"Yes, I know." Cas lifts a blood-stained hand and waves it in Sam's face. "It's very annoying."

Sam pushes the hand back onto his side.

"It's cold out here," says Cas.

Sam narrows his eyes. He wraps his jacket tighter around Cas. "How badly are you hurt? Can you access your grace at all?"

Cas lifts his hands, manacles included, "it's blocked."

"And how badly are you hurt?"

The hands fall back down with a clank. "I'll live."

Sam huffs but nods, adjusting Cas's hand until he's applying pressure again, and then his own hands float up to ghost over Cas's vitals. "Right. Tell me your injuries."

Cas peers into the distance. "How far is that door? Shouldn't Dean be here by now? You should go check on him."

Sam's focus doesn't waver for a second. "Dean's fine. Tell me your injuries."

"You can see them just fine."

"All of them?" Sam gives Cas a pointed look.

Cas looks right back. "Yes?"

Sam skitters over Castiel's ribcage, "And what do these bruises tell me?"

"That I am bruised."

"You got broken ribs, Cas? Internal bleeding? A punctured spleen? Tell me."

"Yes. Yes. No." Cas answers each question in turn.

Sams's face twists. He starts pressing against Cas's torso, looking for the bleeding. "Shit. Anything else I should know about?"

"No." Cas stares straight ahead. There's something coiling in his chest, stiff and dark and unsettling. Something very wrong, like the feeling that something horrible is about to happen.

"Cas."

"I think I—my hand hurts." His fingers twitch.

Sam's gaze skates down. He lifts Cas's arm, but not far enough to pull the other one. "That's because your fingers are broken." He sets it carefully back down. "What else?"

"He stabbed me."

"Those two I can see. What else?"

"Three," says Cas, and Sam stills.

"What?" Sam asks.

"He stabbed me three—"

Sam jerks a little, eyes roving, "Where?"

Cas leans forward. "I think it hit the back of my shoulder."

Sam maneuvers to check. He swears. "He stabbed you? Are you sure? Looks like he tried to flay the skin from your bones. Shit, Cas."

Cas shifts under the scrutiny and doesn't respond.

"Well this looks bad," Sam presses the edges of the wound. "Looks infected already. How long ago was this?"

Cas furrows his eyebrows because he doesn't know. "What time is it?"

"Two something," Sam shrugs.

"Mmmm… 16 hours, maybe?"

Sam's eyes widen. "And it's still bleeding?!"

"Is it?" The feeling is still there. The dread. Something very wrong.

"Yeah, Cas. Crap," Sam rubs harshly at his forehead before he's looking Cas over again. He presses Cas's shoulder back against the wall, the layer of jacket between, and Cas can't help the wince. "What else?" Sam asks.

"What else what?" The pain is making his voice more gravelly than usual.

"What else is hurt?"

"Oh." Cas takes stock of himself. "My ankle?"

Sam shifts, still holding pressure on Cas's thigh, to peer down. "Looks swollen," he says. "How long did you walk on it?"

"After it was injured?" Cas asks.

"Yes."

Cas stares off, calculating. "Seven hours?"

Sam looks up to meet his eyes. "Are you serious?"

Cas nods.

Sam shifts his weight. He's crouching now. He was kneeling before. "And how long did you walk without shoes?"

"Eight hours."

Sam shakes his head and opens his mouth to say something but then footsteps come drifting around the corner. Sam stands, feet braced, but it's Dean that appears.

"Hello, Dean."

Dean grinds to a halt when he peers past Sam, face darkening. He throws the first aid at Sam. "Here." Dean walks past him and pulls a set of lock picks from his pocket.

"His fingers are broken," Sam tells him, already pulling out compresses for stab wounds.

Dean moves carefully, picking up the manacles without jostling Cas's hand too much. He sets Cas's arms back on his lap and stows the manacles in a jacket pocket. He looks at Sam, "We good to go?"

Sam is pressing down the last pad over Cas's side. He nods.

So Dean scoots closer to Cas, and leans him forward away from the wall. He latches hands and arms with Sam.

"I can walk," says Cas.

"You'll stain the floor with bloody footprints," says Dean, "Nah. This is easier. Get on."

It's a testament to how tired and hurt Cas is that he doesn't argue further. He maneuvers backwards, putting his arms around Sam and Dean's shoulders. They lift.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the dread starts to dissipate. They slip inside, Dean clearing the way before they carry Cas and take him to the room Sam and Dean are sharing.

Cas makes it back to his home, and he doesn't have to wait long before Sam and Dean make it safe again.


	3. Chapter 3

_A/N: This chapter took a long time, it didn't want to stop. Basic summary: the refugees get a hold of Cas and mess with his memory and powers and Dean and Sam hear the commotion and come help. Inaccuracies, because I don't actually know where Castiel is power-wise at this point and I haven't seen all of the show._

* * *

Castiel doesn't know what's going on, but he knows it isn't good. He pushes against the arms pinning him down. Then the second cuff slips on.

Castiel screams. Screams so sharp that glass shatters, remnants of light bulbs raining down on the men holding him. Men that are careening backwards, clutching at their ears, blood slipping between their fingers.

Castiel careens the other way, still screaming, limbs scrabbling at the floor as he staggers up and into a run. He takes a bad turn around the corner and falls, hitting the concrete floor at such an angle that all the breath escapes his lungs in one harsh wheeze.

Footsteps come clattering toward him and even though Castiel can't breathe, he shoves upward, dizzy and light-headed, and starts back into a run, jolting a few steps, chest spasming for air and not getting any. It's making his limbs fuzzy and tingly and he keeps running into walls. He doesn't know what will happen if the men catch up, but he knows it won't be good. There's a feeling in his gut, different from the ache in his lungs as they start to function again and he starts running straighter and faster. A feeling coiled up inside of him, as tight and cold as the metal cuffs wrapped around his wrists.

Castiel isn't sure where the cuffs came from, only that they're too tight and they hurt. Hurt more than his wrists. Hurt like they're cutting his heart off from the rest of him, leaving him numb and cold from the loss.

The footsteps are haunting him, growing louder and louder and shouts are accompanying them.

Castiel can feel how close they are, but doesn't dare move his head to look because he's faltering enough as it is.

Something hits his legs and Castiel goes crashing down. He starts screaming again. The light bulbs burst in a splatter of glass, sending the hall plunging into darkness. Castiel's limbs are screaming too, frantically trying to pull him back to his feet and into a run.

Castiel screams so loud that he can't hear the cursing voices. He can feel the hands tugging at his overcoat and shoes, trying to pull him toward a throng of limbs. Castiel screams and screams and screams, shoving and pulling and trying to break free.

Someone throws something that hits the side of his head and sends it slamming to the ground. It cuts off Castiel's screaming and makes his limbs fuzzy. He jerks slowly, still trying to break free. It takes him a moment to find his senses and sound comes rushing toward him in a volley of shouts as the men and women tug Castiel into the throng and start dragging him down the hall.

Castiel misses the retaliation volley of newcomer footsteps and shouts, too busy punching and squirming and kicking and too surrounded to do any good, too many hands holding him as they lug him down the hall. He'd like to say that he breaks free on his own. He doesn't.

The newcomers are tall and almost familiar, one with raging green eyes and one with hair that flies around the sides of his face. Their voices are slipping through Castiel's senses, and he finds himself seeking them out without knowing why. He can just make out their faces over the heads of the people restraining him.

A gunshot, cracking through the din of noise, brings most of the crowd to a harsh stop. Not all of them, though, and Castiel finds himself being torn in two by violent grips, some pulling him to go and others pulling him to stay and he screams again.

Another gunshot goes off, coinciding with Castiel ripping one arm free and punching someone so hard that they go down in a tangle of limbs with three other people. Castiel crashes through the barrier of people, tumbling to the floor as he breaks past them. A few men go to grab him, leaning over, reaching, and then one of them tilts backwards with a sharp cry, clutching a bleeding hand in close. "Damn Winchesters," he says.

Castiel knows that word. That name. He doesn't know why.

He scrambles backward without standing, tearing past the last few determined hands.

The two men are behind him, Castiel realizes, and moves and twists until his back hits a wall and he holds up his arms to shield himself, knees drawn up to his chest, not sure what to do or where to go, people on either side.

"Cas, you okay?" The voice is gruff and low and somehow Castiel recognizes the shaky undertones of concern. He's not sure why, but the voice rolls over him like the sound of his own name, familiar and deep and it makes Castiel cant his head, trying to place it.

"Cas?" The other man says. The taller one with longer hair, and his voice does the same thing, filling Castiel with something he can't quite place. Something comforting. "Castiel?" they ask, and that, Castiel knows.

His eyes fix back on them, searching, not sure what they want from him. They stare right back. Something about them is pressing at his memory. Their clothing, the way they stand, the gun smoking in the shorter one's hand and the bigger gun held in both hands by the taller one. They don't say anything else and Castiel thinks that maybe they're waiting for him. "I am Castiel," he confirms.

Castiel's wrists are hurting. His heart is hurting. Missing. He claws at the cuffs, trying to work them off.

The matching frowns of the unknown men in his peripheral strikes another nerve of familiarity.

"What are those?" One of them asks. The short one, using the gun to point.

Castiel just shakes his head and keeps clawing and tugging at the two metal bands, everything aching with a need to get them off.

The tall man takes a step toward Castiel and Castiel screams at him. The man jerks back with a cry, dropping his gun from one hand to clutch at his ear. The shorter one curses, tilting back a few steps. "Son of a bitch."

Castiel doesn't scream for long. Just enough to stop them approaching. The group on his other side also gets pushed back a few steps by the scream. Castiel likes his newfound space. He turns his head back to his task of prying the cuffs off. They're too tight. Squeezing his wrists and making his hands tingle numbly, making his fingers feel stiff and thick as they fumble at the bands.

"What the hell did you do to him?" The short man asks, voice dark and deep and painfully familiar.

Castiel looks up, expecting him to be looking at Castiel, worrying over his companion's bleeding ears, angry and violent. He's not. He's glaring past Castiel at the group of men and women down the hall, and Castiel follows his gaze confusedly. "Do to who?" he asks.

Tall man's face is pinched, his hand pressing at the blood dripping from his ears. He can still hear though, must be able to, because he's the one who responds, looking at Castiel as he does. "You," he says, and there's something almost fierce about it. Defensive, maybe. He doesn't look angry about his ears. He looks scared. It's faint, but it's there, buried beneath a determined gaze, and Castiel isn't sure why he picks up on it.

Castiel tilts his head, staring and staring and wondering what this jagged press at the back of his head is. Why this man's voice and appearance is so familiar to his senses. "Do I know you?" he asks.

The man's face falls.

The shorter man's hardens. He glares at the other people. Neither group is making any move to approach Castiel, for which Castiel is grateful. He just wishes they would leave so he could escape.

"What the hell _are_ those?" Short man asks, gesturing toward Castiel but looking at the other people.

Castiel frowns between them. "What?" He missed something, he must have. He doesn't like it. Doesn't like the way it makes fear coil around his insides.

No one responds.

The noise the man emits can only be described as a growl.

Castiel finds himself curling into the wall.

Tall man sits. Just sits, legs folding awkwardly as he crosses them, drawing Castiel's gaze. He faces Castiel, staring right at him. "Castiel?"

Castiel nods, wary of the new stance and yet comforted by his familiarity at the same time. "I am Castiel," he says.

"Do you know where you are?"

Castiel opens his mouth to respond, the place on the tip of his tongue, only to find that it's not quite there. He closes his mouth, frowning, looking around. The walls are thick, he knows, because he could hear it, hear how they muffled and smothered sound. The floors too.

Only one end of the hallway is lit, the other covered in glass and broken bulbs and Castiel knows this place. He knows he does. He opens his mouth… and closes it again when he can't place himself. Can't place this place. It's there, but it's not there. The feeling of it, though, that, he knows. That, he places. He opens his mouth again. "Home?" he asks, turning back to face the man.

A smile tugs at the corners of tall man's mouth. He nods. "Yeah. Yeah, that's right." He waves a hand in a motion that's pressing at Castiel's mind as something he's seen before, using it to indicate himself and his companion. "You know who we are?"

With 'home' on Castiel's tongue and mind, it isn't hard to place the waves of familiarity and comfort the two men give off. "Family?"

The smile grows on the man's face, and Castiel loves the feel of it. "Yeah," the man says, "we're your family." He waves toward Castiel. Waves Castiel toward himself. "You want to come a little closer, maybe?"

Castiel looks at the distance between them. A distance he likes. He frowns, too wary to fully accept the familiarity. And he curls back into the wall, hands pulling in close. "No, thank you."

"It's okay, Cas, we're not gonna hurt you." It's the short man who says it, gun raised but not at Castiel. It lowers just slightly as he says it, like he's worried that the gun is what's making Castiel reluctant. It's not. Castiel doesn't know why, but it's not.

Castiel's head tilts as he parses through what the man said, catching on one of the words and wondering, because it feels like something he knows. "Is that my name?"

"Cas?" the man asks, and it's the first time he's turned to look at Castiel since he asked the other people what 'those' were.

Castiel nods.

The man nods back. In confirmation, his green eyes fixed and familiar. "It's a nickname."

More words on the tip of Castiel's tongue. He can't quite find them. "What are _your_ names?" he asks. The cuffs are so cold they burn but Castiel soldiers past it, putting them from his mind.

"I'm Sam," the tall man says, gesturing to himself. He's still sitting. He points up to one side. "And this is Dean." He looks at Castiel with something familiar but unplaceable. "We're your family," he says.

Castiel can feel the tension in the hallway. People on one side and strangely familiar people on the other, both sides braced and waiting and Castiel's not sure what for.

"They're not your family."

Castiel turns at the voice, finding a woman in the crowd of other people, looking at him intently. "We are," she says. "They kidnapped you, told you this was your home. We're here to take you back."

Castiel frowns at her, the words scraping against his senses as wrong. He scoots toward Sam and Dean a little because he doesn't like the way she's reaching for him. The way some of them are looking at him. He shakes his head, not sure how to respond.

"She's lying to you, Cas." A voice comes from behind him but Castiel is too wary of the group at his front to turn. "They put those cuffs on you and screwed with your head somehow."

"Dean," Sam says softly from behind Castiel, his voice so, so familiar. "Look at him, he knows. Let him figure it out on his own."

Dean won't like that, Castiel knows, and he doesn't know how he knows.

A man in the group, standing by the woman, says, "We're your family, Castiel." He says the name slow and deliberate, like it's unfamiliar and he's trying hard not to mess it up. He takes a step forward, hand extended, "Come back with us, we'll take you to your real home."

Castiel feels something cold and worrisome strangle his insides. He's shaking his head even before the man finishes talking, scooting back a few more inches to renew the distance between them. "No, thank you," he says. "I'm okay on my own, I think." He's painfully aware of the fact that he's getting closer to Sam and Dean. He finds he doesn't mind that overmuch.

"We can get the cuffs off."

Castiel's attention snaps towards another woman, this one short and bright and a little too eager.

She smiles. Castiel doesn't like it. She keeps talking. "You want them off, don't you? Don't they hurt? We can get them off for you, you just have to come with us. Sam and Dean can't get them off."

He doesn't like her, but the words make him pause. He wants the cuffs off. Needs them off, because they're making him feel cold and numb and not all there. He finds himself leaning forward, scooting just an inch toward that woman.

Dean's voice is hard. "Let him figure this out?" he grumbles to Sam.

Sam's voice is thin. Worried. "No. No, now you should talk to him."

"Cas." Dean says it quick and easy, with no hesitation. "Castiel. They're not gonna take the cuffs off, you know that. Me and Sam, we don't know what it's gonna take to get them off, but we'll sure as hell figure it out, I swear."

Castiel finds his head turning, fingers twitching. They're still digging at the edges of the metal, he realizes, starting to feel raw. "I need them off," he says.

Dean nods, determined, his face a face that Castiel knows, has seen before, and believes. "We'll get them off," Dean tells him.

"They can't get them off," someone says, but Castiel doesn't turn to look. He recognizes the voice as male and nothing else. Nothing else there to recognize. "They won't, they don't want to. They put them on."

Dean's mouth flattens into a thin line. "Don't listen to those sons of bitches. You're family, Cas. A Winchester, through and through. We'll fix this, just like we always do."

Others are talking, but Castiel doesn't find himself locking onto their voices like he is with Dean's. Dean's is easy to pick out. Easy because he knows it. Castiel knows it. Knows him.

Sam is looking at him hopefully, arm lifted but not quite reaching, just hovering over his legs where they're crossed. He's still sitting.

Cas turns more fully, back to the wall. He scoots closer to Dean and Sam, finding that he can't stop looking at them. Something is hugging close to his chest. Something Dean said. "Winchester?" he asks.

Sam nods. "We're the Winchesters. And you're one of us."

Castiel looks at him, fingers pulling and tugging at the cuffs, wrists starting to bleed, but he barely notices. "Promise?"

Dean and Sam both nod. "Promise," they murmur. Not at the same time, but that doesn't matter.

"Okay." Castiel starts to scoot carefully closer, keeping his back to the wall because he doesn't want to turn it to the others and leave himself open.

Someone in the other group lets out a sound of frustration. Then they say a word. A word Castiel knows with a deep familiarity. A word from a language that fits on his tongue much better than the one he's speaking. A word he hates because it hurts.

It hurts like ice scraping through his veins and Castiel screams, curling in on himself as they hiss the word out over and over.

Sam and Dean are screaming too. They obliterate the distance remaining between them and Castiel. Sam does, anyway. Dean breaks past it. Way past it with a retaliation volley. A real volley, shots cracking off the walls along with his shouts.

The word stops.

Dean screams.

Sam is a flurry of movement, a dance Castiel has seen before but it's too fast to him to follow. Dean is falling, blood on his fingers, and Sam catches him. Lifts him. Dean won't let go of the gun and he's still firing, even as Sam slips beneath him and takes his weight. Sam is shouting, turning, bringing Dean with him, hands full, "Cas! Cas, come on!"

He reaches Castiel and breaks half a step past him, hesitating, waiting, "Please?!"

Dean extends an arm and grabs a fistful of Castiel's overcoat, pulling him upward, still firing with his other hand, keeping the crowd dispersed. "Goddammit, Cas. Son of a bitch, come on!"

That gets him moving. That voice, those words, that tone. The crowd is firing back, he realizes, when one of the shots cracks into his back and barrels out through the front. Castiel is numb to it. Numb to everything but the men in front of him, leading him down hallways and through doors and in and out of rooms. Sam stops to lock some of them.

At some point, the lights change from yellow to red, making the halls glow darker. Doors are locked before they reach them, and it's a long process to work their way through the building.

Dean doesn't let go of Castiel. He's smearing blood on Castiel's overcoat. On the shoulder of it.

Castiel's own blood is smearing the side of it, down low at his abdomen.

Sam shoves through a door and they break out into bright light, a siren blaring behind them.

Castiel draws to a stop, separating from Dean, eyes pinching shut as he pulls in on himself.

"Cas! Cas! Castiel!"

Castiel squints his eyes open and looks over at Dean and Sam, who are both looking back at him, breathing hard, eyes open impossibly wide in this brightness.

"You gotta come with us."

There are footsteps haunting them. Growing louder and closer.

Castiel jolts forward a little. He doesn't know what will happen if they catch up, but he knows it won't be good.

"Yeah, yeah, come on." Sam encourages him, hands still full holding Dean up. Dean's bleeding at his side just like Castiel is.

Sam's ears are bleeding. And that's Cas's fault, isn't it?

"I'm sorry."

Sam shakes his head. "No, no, hey, just come on." He's jogging, watching Castiel to make sure he follows, "You gotta keep up."

Castiel nods a little, jolting himself forward to Sam's pace, trying to match him. Everything hurts.

They wind around the building, around and around until a car comes into view, long and black and sleek. Castiel draws to a stop, tilting his head to stare while Sam rushes forward with Dean. Castiel knows this car, he thinks, as he listens to the door open and watches Sam shove Dean into the back seats. Castiel knows those seats. He doesn't know how he knows.

"Cas! Castiel!" Dean is shouting at him, waving a hand like the motion itself will bring Castiel closer, eyes wide and face pale and—there's something of fear in his features, Castiel knows, adding weight to his mouth and his familiar green eyes. A tired, nervous weight.

Castiel finds that he's moving toward him, seeking to... he doesn't know. He knows that Dean is scared and that Dean wants Castiel closer, so Castiel moves.

Sam is still doing the flurried dance, at the trunk and the doors and the passenger side and the driver's side, doing things that Castiel recognizes but doesn't understand.

Castiel is not moving fast enough, he realizes, when the fear bleeds into Dean's voice, hidden beneath anger and frustration and loudness. "Come on!"

And then Sam is there, at Castiel's side, urging him faster, shoving him gently, "It's okay, it's okay, we're gonna help you, we're your family, you know us. We gotta go, but it's okay." He shoves Castiel all the way into the car. Into the back seat with Dean. Dean latches onto Castiel's arm to help pull him in and then Sam closes the door and finishes the dance by moving into the driver's seat and letting the car take over.

The sound of the rumbling engine. Of the tires on the road. Of Sam and Dean's voices. Castiel knows these things, he's sure of it. And he knows the feel of the seats below his hand, knows all the ridges and bumps. Knows the stain on the back of the passenger seat. There's something about that stain that tugs down at the corners of Castiel's mouth. Something he doesn't like.

"Hey," Dean says, and Castiel realizes that Dean is grabbing Castiel's hand, that Castiel's fingers are still tearing fruitlessly at the cuffs and his wrists are bleeding now. "Let's not do that," Dean murmurs.

The feel of Dean's hand, of his worn fingers and calluses and the concern beneath the roughness… why does Castiel's form know all these things?

There's pain on Dean's face. Pain in the wrinkles around his eyes and the curl of his mouth as he scrutinizes Castiel's fingers. There's blood at his side, seeping past a hand and a balled up shirt.

Castiel finds that his own hand is moving forward. He doesn't know why, he just knows. His hand knows. Two fingers extend, pushing to press at Dean's forehead, and pressing against it is familiar and painful. He smears blood on Dean's forehead and that's all he does. But that's not right. Dean's pain should disappear, his breathing should even out, his features should look less pale and more healthy. Castiel presses harder.

Dean gently draws his hand away. "It's okay," he says, but there's something there. Something Castiel can't quite place. Disappointment, maybe, or sorrow, and Castiel finds himself doubting the verity of the words. Dean draws back a little, still holding Castiel's hand, keeping him from attacking the cuffs, but moving to face the front instead. He lifts Castiel's hand up to scrutinize the metal band.

Castiel draws back too, feeling as though he's done something wrong. He stares at the stain on the seat in front of him. It's red, that stain. A reddish brown. Like the stain on Dean's forehead. Like fingers pressing against it.

Castiel's free hand moves forward to brush over it, wondering if the feel of it will be familiar to his fingers. He stops before he reaches it, because the motion pulls at his side and makes him feel cold. His side hurts. His side and his back and Castiel leans forward off the seat because he doesn't want to stain it. Castiel looks down, hand moving to pull his overcoat open. The cuff is on his wrist, stained with red, and the red makes it easier to see the markings. Words. Words Castiel knows. Castiel wants to trace over them. To feel them. But Dean is keeping a firm hold of his other hand.

His side hurts. Castiel's almost-numb hand pulls his overcoat open, his head tilting down to look. He's stained the coat, and that makes him feel cold. This coldness is different. Deep and dark and sharp. It's a frightening sort of cold. His tongue moves because it knows, even if Castiel doesn't. "Dean?" His tongue knows the word but his throat is cold and it makes his voice come out strange.

Dean turns to look at him. He swears. Then his hand releases Castiel's, breaking forward to curl the coat open wider. "Sam," he says, and that's a dark familiarity, that is. Castiel doesn't like it. Doesn't like that tremor in Dean's voice. And he doesn't know why.

Sam swears.

Dean is trying to push Castiel back against the seat, murmuring to him that it's okay. He doesn't understand that Castiel is fighting him because he doesn't want to add another stain to this car.

"It hit me from the back," Castiel says, trying to make him understand.

Dean curses so sharply that it cuts into the path of the car and makes it swerve. He tilts Castiel forward with one hand, pawing at the coat, fingers worrying along his back.

"Sam, get us somewhere!" That voice is cold and harsh, even if it's coming from a foundation of fear. It's cruel. Cruel to Sam because Sam, head twisting to glance over his shoulder at Dean and Castiel—Sam looks scared.

"Don't yell," Castiel says to Dean, quiet and calm. And then he turns to Sam. "It's okay, Sam," he murmurs, not quite as warmly as he wants to.

Neither man—brother, Castiel thinks, they're brothers, family—knows quite what to do with that.

"Can you heal this?" Dean asks, still worrying over the wound at his side and back.

Castiel gives him a confused look. He reaches out a hand to brush over Dean's where it's holding a balled up shirt to the man's side. "Can _you_ heal _this_?"

"I'm not an angel," Dean grumbles.

"Oh." Angel. Castiel knows that. So many things are tied to that word. So many feelings. Power and strength and surety. Shame and guilt and fault. He feels that word, _angel_, the feel of a sword and the sight of bright light and the sound of trillions of voices. He tastes it like flames and ash and age—so much age—beneath his skin. "Am I an angel?"

Dean's face softens just a little, though the wrinkles of angry concern don't leave. He's balling up the bottom of Castiel's overcoat, pressing it hard against his side. "Yeah," he says. "Yeah, you are. Wings and everything."

"Oh." _Wings_. Castiel can feel them now, numb and cold like everything else. And brittle. Frail. Not quite right. They ache differently than the rest of him. Ache more. They're there, but they're not there. "I don't think they work," he says.

Castiel doesn't know how so many emotions fit on Dean's face, doesn't know how Castiel recognizes them. Sorrow runs up alongside pain and worry and anger and frustration, affecting every movement of his form. He slows, eyes looking at Castiel but not _looking_ at Castiel. Looking at his wound instead. "Yeah," Dean says.

Sam glances over his shoulder again and the pinch at his eyebrows is heavier. Sadder.

"Yeah, uh, they don't work." Dean is tying something around Castiel's torso. Something he found in a bag on the floor. A bag Sam put there. Dean's voice is gruff. "But that's okay, we have the car."

Castiel isn't sure how the car relates to his wings. He stares at Dean. This strangely familiar man, bending down to reach into the bag on the floor of the car and pull out more bandages. Dean grimaces as he pulls the balled up shirt from his side and replaces it. His face looks too old.

When he finishes he glances over at Castiel and grows even older. He reaches out, grabbing Castiel's hand where it's tearing and tugging and clawing at his wrist, pulling it slowly away. "Let's not do that."

"How do I know you?" Castiel asks, half thinking aloud, half actually asking.

Dean doesn't respond. Sam doesn't either. Dean lifts his wrist to peer at the cuff, grabbing something from the bag on the floor and clearing off the blood.

Castiel feels cold. He pulls his hand back. "_Do I_ know you?"

Dean reaches for his hand again. "Yes," he says, and Sam nods in the front seat.

Castiel keeps his hand to himself, pulling it further to dodge Dean's fingers, subconsciously starting to tear at the bands again. "How? Why can't I remember?"

Dean points at the bands. "That's probably why. Let me look at them."

Castiel feels his face pinch. "No." He pulls his hands up, tugging and sliding over each other, to peer at the words.

Familiar hands reach for him but Castiel keeps pulling away, murmuring the words to himself as he reads. "This is a binding," Castiel realizes finally, frowning down.

Dean's hands draw back and his head draws forward, trying to see. "Can you tell me what it says?"

Castiel stares at him. At his features, at his form, at the car in the background behind him. Things he's seen before but he doesn't know where or when he's seen them. It's starting to ache, this not quite knowing. This there, but not there memory at the edge of his senses. "Tell me how I know you."

The reluctance is in Dean's shoulders. In the downturn of his eyes. In the motion of nervous hands, fiddling with bandages and shirts and seat cushions. "You... gripped me tight and raised me from perdition," he says, something light in his voice. Almost humored.

Castiel doesn't really notice that. He's too busy feeling the word 'perdition.' "Hell," he says aloud, and he can feel it on his skin, the heat singeing his feathers and his very being, burning right through his form to Dean pressed against him. Feel the thunder and roar of demons as they pool like maggots from a carcass, cascading toward him with such fury that the very earth trembles beneath the assault. "Oh. _Oh_."

Dean has slipped in close somehow, grabbed one of Castiel's arms and pulled it away from the other one without Castiel noticing. "Yeah," he says. "Now tell me what this means."

Castiel looks down and feels the memory of ash rolling from his head and shoulders. "It's a binding."

"I know it's a binding, but I need you to tell me exactly what it says, every symbol."

Castiel tries to point, but Dean won't let go of his hand. "It says break —err no, not break. More like separate, or sunder."

Dean is sharp focus and intent, staring at Castiel and the metal band. "Separate what?"

It's hard to see, so Castiel brings his hand up, turning it. "I'm an angel?" he asks, flicking a glance at Dean.

Dean nods.

Castiel turns back to the band. "It... talks about heaven. Separate from heaven. Separate from..." Castiel frowns. He'd missed this phrase the first time. He wants to move his hand to trace over the word, but Dean holds it tight.

"What?" Dean asks.

"This is..." Castiel stares at it for another long moment, because the word is foggy, but he can feel it inside of him. Feel it on his tongue. "Memory."

Dean's shoulders fall. He draws back just a little, mumbling. "That's good. No, that's good. Now—now we can be sure. We can fix it." Something is hidden in those words. Castiel recognizes it but doesn't understand it. Something... Like a door slamming closed. Something lost.

Castiel doesn't like it and doesn't know how to fix it. He knows what caused it, though, and he reads over the phrase again. "It's a specific memory. A specific kind. It's event-like, it's..." Castiel struggles for a moment to come up with the word. "Episodic."

In the front seat, Sam nods. "That makes sense. So you still sort of remember us, you just don't remember any specific events. Anything you did with us."

Castiel nods. "That seems right, yes."

"What else does it say?" Dean asks. He's drawn forward again, looking with Castiel at the cuff, almost like he's forgotten he's holding Castiel's arm and has a closer one that he could look at.

Castiel turns his wrist. "The binding is next. It tampers down on my... self? My inherent being? I'm not sure. It's almost..." he squints and shakes his head. "I'm not sure."

"Almost what?"

"Body." Castiel frowns, twisting his wrist more, wondering if he's missing part of it. "Or it's binding me _to_ a body? My... something... to a body."

"Binding your _grace_?" Dean asks. "Or like your—" he struggles for the word— "angel soul?"

Castiel frowns at the markings. "I suppose," he says slowly, not quite sure that fits. He shifts in the seat, cold again. A jarring ache presses steadily at his side and back. More than an ache. A splintering pain. He ignores it, peering at the language engraved atop his wrist. The last mark is one he knows without even thinking. "It has my name," he says.

At that, Dean leans even closer. He traces over Castiel's name for half a second, finding it with no direction from Castiel. The movement is full of depth. Depth that Castiel doesn't have the memory to see. "Right," Dean says, hand pulling back, but his eyes staying fixed. "What else?"

Castiel shakes his head and lowers his hand onto his leg. "Nothing else."

Dean lifts Castiel's other hand, bringing it closer. "What about this one?" He releases his grip entirely and Castiel tries hard to keep from pulling his other hand up to tear at it, needing to get them off.

He rotates it slowly, carefully, making sure he doesn't miss anything before he drops it down. "It's the same." Castiel is staring at the stain on the back of the seat again. He knows that stain, he knows he does. He reaches forward to trace it, ignoring the pull at the bottom of his torso from the movement. "What is this?" he asks.

"Blood, probably." Dean is farther, now that Castiel has finished reading the bands. He's a weary form, slumped back against the seat, breathing slowly. He glances at the stain and then rests his head on the seat and closes his eyes.

Castiel finds himself staring, watching, unable to look away from the man he can't quite place. "What's it from?"

Dean doesn't even open his eyes. "One of us, probably."

Castiel shakes his head. His head moves without his consent, turning while his hand lifts to trace back over the stain. "Not who. What. What event? What happened? Where, when, why? Why do I know it?"

"I don't know, Cas."

That's not the answer Castiel wants and his head shakes it off while his eyes stare. "I know this stain." He can feel it. Feel something there brushing against his skin, but he can't quite grab hold of it. He can feel wetness of tears or blood or cold. And need. A desperate need full of fear. It's dark, this stain. Or it _was_ dark. At the time. There was darkness closing in around him. "It's sad," he says. Sad and cold, but he can't turn away. "I don't like it."

Sam flicks a glance at him. "You okay?" he asks.

Castiel is pulled from his reverie, eyes finding Sam's eyes in the mirror. "I want these off," he says. His fingers are twisting and prying and tearing again. He's tearing his fingers on the edges of them, trying so hard.

Dean leans over and grabs his arm. When did his eyes open? He pulls one of Castiel's hands over toward himself, settling back down, eyes closing again. "We'll get them off."

Castiel believes him. Even if he doesn't know why.

Sam pulls the car off the highway soon after that. "Hospital?"

Dean shakes his head. He's looking out the window, seeing where Sam brought them. His grip on Castiel's arm shifts a little. "If we can get these bands off, Cas should be able to heal both of us."

Hesitance is in Sam's glance in the rear-view mirror. In the loosening and tightening of his hands on the steering wheel. "He might have to recharge or something. You never know with these things."

Dean's head shakes in determination. "If it takes more than an hour, you can drive us to a hospital. But I wanna get these off him first, and besides, him clawing at them is gonna make the staff ask questions we don't wanna answer."

Sam nods, the hesitance transformed to reluctance. His eyes flick back to the road. He keeps driving.

He turns off the road into a parking lot where there's a big sign flashing the number 14.

Sam twists around to lean into the back seat, "Give me something to clean my hands off." There's dried blood on them.

Castiel stares at the flashing sign while Dean reaches down into the bag on the floor and hands Sam a water bottle and a cloth. "Ears too," Dean says, with a bob of his head.

Castiel squints at the sign, head tilting as he stares out the window. "14 what?"

Dean leans forward to look. "Motel 14," Dean says. "It's the name of this place. Not very creative, but whatever."

Sam cleans his hands and his face, changes his shirt, and then unfolds from the car, leaving with the familiar sound of the door latching back onto the frame.

Motel. There's something there. Not strong enough for Castiel to find it. He sits there trying and failing until Sam comes back.

Sam gets in the driver's seat, "I got us a room," he says, twisting around to look over his shoulder as he backs the car out. He pulls it around to the other side of the building.

The car jolts to a stop in the parking space.

Sam is moving and Castiel watches him. Watches him twist his head around before he gets out of the car and stands. Castiel loses sight of his face and cranes forward over Dean, trying to look. Sam keeps twisting his head even after he's out of the car, searching and searching and searching and Castiel doesn't know what for. Finally, he walks over to the door in front of the car—number 32—and unlocks it, pushing it open just a little. Every movement is screaming at Castiel. He knows what Sam is going to do before he does it. Knows he's going to tap his fingers on his leg as he walks back, knows he's going to bunch up his shoulders, though he's trying not to, knows he's going to look around one last time before he bends down to open the back door of the car.

The door opens and Dean moves and Castiel's attention shifts, latching onto him instead. He's pale, features pinched in pain, and Castiel is invading his space where he leaned forward to follow Sam's movements. Dean doesn't like that, Castiel knows, and he finds himself leaning back as uneasy discomfort rolls over his skin. Castiel murmurs an apology and Dean gives him a strange look. But a moment later Dean is moving and Castiel can't stop staring. A stiffness has invaded Dean's movements. A shaky sort of stiffness. He releases Castiel's arm with a mumbled, "Don't touch the cuffs," and then he's tilting toward the open door, latching onto Sam's waiting arm. Castiel can see the ease between Sam and Dean, see how many times they've practiced this before.

They fit, forms working together without hindering as Sam draws Dean up and they move slowly toward the open motel door.

It seems fitting as well, that it's just the two of them and not Castiel with them, though that fit feels raw.

Sam comes back out, of course, because they left the doors open. Castiel watches the man look around and around and tap on his leg and walk over to the back door of the car. He leans down, arm reaching in, "Come on." It's warm. Those words, that reach. And Castiel is drawn forward, sliding across the seat and out onto the pavement, Sam's arm grabbing Castiel's arm and supporting his weight. His legs jolt beneath him and Sam pulls him in closer.

"I don't feel right," Castiel says.

Sam just nods, closing the car door and leading Castiel over the pavement. They break the threshold of the motel and Sam closes the door and guides Castiel over to a bed. Past Dean, who's leaning back against the headboard of another bed, watching them.

Sam lets go of Castiel and Castiel finds himself tilting after him without meaning to, wanting that support back.

Sam doesn't seem to notice. He's walking toward Dean but Dean is shaking his head, lifting a slow, heavy hand to point at Castiel, saying "Cuffs first."

A sigh shudders through Sam, but he straightens his shoulders and shakes his head back. "Injuries first."

Castiel gets the feeling that he's missing something when Sam's shoulders fall back down a moment later, as though those two words took all his energy. Dean catches it, whatever it is, staring at Sam and then nodding slowly, face blank. Sam goes to the car and grabs the bag that was on the floor of the backseat, dropping it on the bed beside Dean.

"Cas first," Dean says.

Sam shakes his head. "Cas doesn't look ready to pass out." He's deliberate in his movements. Slow, almost, unwrapping whatever Dean wrapped around his torso and pulling it back, following a pattern that Castiel feels he should understand and predict, but can't. It's not quite there in his mind and he feels like it should be. He can feel _where_ it should be, brushing past him in a sensation that's becoming more and more common and more and more painful. Almost, almost, almost. The more Castiel stares, the more he can feel it, brushing closer and closer, but never reaching.

Castiel watches. Sam is bowed intently over the wound. He pulls something from the bag without looking—a glass bottle, dark with the contents—and hands it to Dean. Dean tips it back and swallows, one brief swallow at a time, before he hands it back to Sam. Sam sets a hand on Dean's shoulder and pours some of the contents out over the wound. Dean stiffens, face curling, fists clenching, but he doesn't make a sound.

It's fluid, this interaction. Fluid and practiced and hardly a word is spoken between them as Sam pulls things from the bag and treats the wound. Sam pulls out a cloth and hands it to Dean and Dean pours something over it and Sam grabs it back to clear the blood, Sam pulls out tweezers and moves them over the wound and Dean knows to brace himself before the bullet comes out, Sam takes his own hand from the cloth at Dean's side to thread a needle and Dean takes over pressing down, Sam—

"Cas," Dean says, and Castiel's form knows the word and reacts before his mind recognizes it as his nickname, snapping to find Dean's eyes. "Leave your wrists alone," Dean says.

"Oh." Castiel hadn't realized he was clawing at them again. He forces his hands away from each other and sets them, fisted, on his lap half a foot apart.

Castiel is not a part of this interaction. He doesn't know the movements, and it's made painfully clear when Sam finishes with Dean and moves to Castiel.

"Do you feel pain right now?" Sam asks, and Castiel doesn't even know what that means. He stares at Sam and doesn't answer. Sam pulls a bottle from the bag. "Drink some of this," he says. Castiel takes a swallow and almost chokes on it, the burn making his eyes water.

Sam smiles, humor at his eyes but not mocking or cruel. "Yeah, it's not the best pain reliever, but we work with what we have. Just take a few more swigs."

Castiel doesn't even know what a swig is. He knows the word but he doesn't really know what it means. How much is a swig? Shame rolls through Castiel because he should know, it's clear Sam expects him to. The shame readily finds its place inside him, molding to his mind like the overcoat has molded to his form, almost inherent somehow. Just another part of him. He swallows a few more mouthfuls and that seems to satisfy Sam. Sam takes the bottle back and Castiel is all too glad to give it up.

"Lay down," Sam says.

Castiel lays down wrong, because Sam shakes his head at him and the shame deepens. "On your side," Sam says, and he grabs at Castiel's shoulder to help correct his position. "Yours went all the way through, so I've gotta patch up the front and back," Sam explains.

Castiel can't help but feel like he doesn't really understand. He's facing Dean now, and Dean is watching Sam and Castiel. Seeing how jaggedly Castiel fits. How he doesn't fit.

Castiel doesn't know what to do, so he just lets Sam do it, fumbling to help when Sam directs him—a hand here, a tilt there, a little less tension, try not to flinch. Sam murmurs a lot of things, actually. Castiel feels the difference keenly from his easy, practiced silence with Dean. These men are vaguely familiar strangers to Castiel and nothing more.

The contents of the bottle burn over his wound, and the burn lingers. Castiel's not sure he does know them. Maybe the other group was right, maybe they kidnapped him. But that doesn't make sense, not really. That doesn't fit with all the things he knows. With the memory of the other group's hostility as they chased him and caught him. With the concern of these two men, trying to help him. Probably trying to help him. Hopefully.

Castiel isn't quite sure.

He jolts when Sam starts stitching. Maybe they're not helping, maybe they're hurting. Maybe it's a trick.

Sam keeps murmuring. "It's okay, Cas, just relax, I'm not gonna hurt you, it's okay." He stops to rub Castiel's shoulder. "I need you to relax, you're tensing too much."

Castiel doesn't know how. "I'm sorry."

Sam is still rubbing his shoulder. "Is it the pain?"

"I don't know." Castiel doesn't know. Doesn't know how to stop tensing, doesn't know how to interact the right way, doesn't know what they want from him. "I don't know anything."

A soft little slip of a hum is his response, followed by a few more murmured words. "It's okay, just relax, I've got you. Don't worry about it."

Castiel almost doesn't think that Sam even realizes he's talking. The sound of his voice is comforting. And also upsetting, because it's comforting and Castiel's not sure it should be. Not sure why it is.

Sam finishes. He's practiced, fluid and fast and effortless. And Castiel hates it because it makes him feel slow. He curls into the bed even as Sam grabs Castiel's wrist and pulls it up.

Castiel pulls it back, turning his face so he doesn't have to see Dean across from him or Sam standing over him.

"Cas?" Sam asks. "Can I look at that? Figure out a way to get it off?"

That stupid voice.

"Maybe clean it up a little? You broke the skin."

Castiel feels small. "I don't know," he says. "I don't know anything."

Sam sits next to him on the bed. "You don't remember anything?" he asks softly.

"I don't know anything," Castiel repeats, voice even smaller. His wrists feel cold. They're pulled in close to each other, and he starts pulling at the bands again. "Why don't I know anything?"

"Hey," murmurs Sam, reaching out to pull one of Castiel's hands away, "It's okay."

Castiel can't listen to his voice anymore. His achingly familiar voice. "Stop."

"Stop what?" Dean asks. Castiel hadn't realized he could hear them. The sound of his voice aches just as much.

"That." Castiel curls into the bed, throat thick. "I don't know you, I don't, I don't."

"You do," Dean says, while Sam rubs Castiel's wrist a little ways above the cuff. "You do know us."

"We're your family," Sam says, "remember? And we're gonna get these off for you." The cuffs. "We'll clean 'em up first, how's that?"

Half a sob escapes Castiel, merging with the words, "I don't know."

Dean gets off his bed, stiff and weary and much too familiar. He sits on the other side of Castiel, one arm on the bed for support, just touching the back of Castiel's shoulder. "Don't worry about it, then, just let us do it."

Castiel doesn't like this feeling. The one that's burrowing into his muscles and throat and lungs. Tight with fear and hurt and dread. A wrongness like a violent mistake scraping through his ribcage and he hates that it feels like his fault. Hates that it probably is. Hates that he's just waiting for them to realize that, waiting for them to turn on him. Hates that he doesn't know what to expect or when to expect it because he doesn't know anything.

All he knows is this feeling, tight in his chest and constricting in his limbs. The feeling that he doesn't fit.

And it's familiar.

As familiar as the feel of his overcoat. As familiar as the feel of Sam's voice and Dean's jacket and the sound of the car sitting outside. Castiel doesn't like how readily it fills him. He doesn't want it. Doesn't want it to be the only thing he knows. He'd rather he didn't know anything.

Sam reaches carefully forward, going to grab Castiel's hand again.

Castiel doesn't let him. He sits up instead, ignoring the pull of his wound. "I think I should... go. I should go." That feels right. Leaving. It fits against his skin and spreads through the muscles of his wings, readying them for flight. But Castiel has to use his legs now. That's right. Fitting. He's not sure he is an angel.

"What?"

The word slips past Castiel. He doesn't want to hear their voices anymore. He does, anyway, and the sharp surprise, so close to outrage, makes shame roll down through his shoulders. "I'll—I—I'm sorry, I'm sorry." The shame is pulling on his head, making it fall. "I'll go."

His hands have stilled, no longer worrying at the cuffs. This ache is deeper than they are. Older. And he doesn't care about the cold numbness in his limbs and his heart. He cares about pressing jaggedly against Sam and Dean with his broken fit. He fits better far away, he thinks. Fits better once he's left.

Sam is moving to stop him, and Castiel doesn't understand why. They're talking, Sam and Dean, voices intertwined in one loud, repetitious melody. "What? Cas? What are you talking about? Go where?"

"I don't know," Castiel says. He doesn't fight Sam, when Sam sets his hands on Castiel's shoulders and steers him back to the bed. Sam is slow and gentle, just barely pushing him onto the covers, but in his grip is a nervousness and its making his fingers shake.

That's Castiel's fault, isn't it?

"Okay," Dean is saying, and he's latching onto Castiel's shoulders as well.

Sam sits on his other side, rubbing Castiel's arm up and down, "Why do you wanna leave?"

Castiel stares at the empty bed. Stares and stares and stares until the emptiness creeps over his eyes and into his veins. Maybe it was already there. "I don't know."

They bandage his wrists. The cuffs are too tight to really bandage or clean, but they try.

They try. That, Castiel feels, chipping away at the emptiness and shame and wrongness.

As though Castiel's pain means something.

And then they stare, all three of them, at the bands. Sam and Dean fill the room with words that Castiel doesn't understand.

"We could pull them apart," Dean says.

Sam's head shakes. He twists one of Castiel's wrists. "There's nothing to pull apart, it's just one uniform band."

"Then how did they get them on?"

There's a pause there that Castiel doesn't like. One he doesn't have the knowledge to fill.

"Cut them open?" Sam tries.

And this time, Dean shakes his head. "They're too tight. We can't fit anything under them."

The three of them stare at the cuffs.

Dean tilts his head toward Castiel. "Any ideas, Cas?"

Castiel stares at the bands. "I don't know."

Something falls in Dean's face. Darkens it or hardens it or _something_. He looks at Castiel for a long moment, stuck on something and Castiel's not sure what. Dean tilts toward him a little. "It's scary, huh? Not remembering?" There's something there. There's something there, and Castiel doesn't know what it is. It washes over him and he keeps slipping out from under it, confused and disoriented and unsure. Is it anger? Adding that depth to Dean's voice. Maybe disappointment. Or a frustrated, struggling sort of sympathy.

"I don't know," Castiel says.

Or maybe it's concern. It feels too raw for concern. Too real, when it's coming from Dean. Dean's concern is a coating as thin as dust. This is as deep as an ocean.

Dean's fingers run over the edges of the band. "You know, I, uh, had some memory problems, not too long ago."

Castiel's head knows to turn, wanting to find Dean. It knows somehow, what the words are full of, and knows that Castiel needs to pay attention. It's important, whatever it is. Important to Dean. So, Castiel listens.

Dean's face is full of detail. Wrinkles of tiredness instead of laugh lines. A down-turned mouth, a heavy skull, green eyes too anxious to look up. But anxious might not be the right word. Embarrassed seems closer. Ashamed.

Shame is something Castiel understands. He finds himself leaning toward Dean, wanting to comfort and not knowing how. Wanting to take all the blame back.

"I didn't lose everything all at once, but I... I know how scary it is. I didn't even know my own name, you know?"

Sam is staring at Dean too, subtle emotions of sorrow and pride in his gaze.

"And I could..." Dean isn't looking back at them. He's looking down. Looking at the words bound to Castiel's wrist. "I could almost... It was _almost_ there. And it drove me crazy trying so hard to find it and not... I wasn't anything, without my memories, I was... I felt blind, you know? And it was scary. Scarier than anything else I've ever faced. I didn't know what to do, I didn't know who I was. I had to fumble my way around without really understanding anything, and I just..." Dean hunches his shoulders. "You're Castiel Winchester. And you're my best friend, okay?"

Castiel can't look away from his face, familiar and deep and terribly, terribly important.

"So anything you wanna know, just ask me. And don't be afraid to tell us what you're thinking because you're smart, Cas, you're a smart guy, and you probably know more about these cuffs than anyone. If you have to think for a second, think for a second, but don't—don't just say 'I don't know' all the time, because I don't care how stupid whatever you're thinkin' is, or how small. We're not asking you your name, not asking you to remember anything. And I don't like it when you say that, because I can tell you—you're thinking about something, you're feeling something, and maybe it could help us figure this out, you know? You remember Enochian, and you—you always come up with something. Stupid stuff, mostly, but... something." Dean looks up. "So, think about it for a minute. Any ideas how to get these off? You know anything about how they got on?"

Castiel thinks. He squints at the cuffs, actually seeing them. "Enochian," he says, because Dean said that word. "That's..." Castiel lifts a wrist. "This?"

Sam and Dean both nod. "The language is Enochian," Sam adds.

Castiel looks back down. "I think... " The memory of pain curls around his core. "I think they..." Castiel's head is fighting him, but he lets the memory soak deeper. A split-second is all he has. A memory of the split second before the second cuff was fully on. Or the split second when it first was, and can feel the snap of the binding latching on to something deep inside of him, but he can feel it on the surface too, snapping around his skin. "They break," he says, tracing over some of the symbols, "...along the words."

Dean tugs Castiel's forearm toward himself. "Let me see." He brushes over the spot Castiel just traced while Sam does the same on the other side. "They break..." The line wraps around the words, not breaking through any phrases, but working its way from the top edge to the bottom by running jaggedly all the way around. "Oh. Oh, that's weird. I wouldn't have seen that."

Pride chips away at empty ache, making Castiel sit a little bit straighter.

"See how smart you are, Cas?" Dean asks, but Castiel's tongue knows not to answer, and Dean presses on, the metal held up close. "So, then we just..." He pulls at the top edge and the bottom edge, and it takes more force than Castiel could've gotten pulling with only one hand. Dean's grits his jaw and pulls, tugging the pieces apa—

Castiel doesn't know what's going on, but he knows it isn't good. He pushes against the arms in front of him, falling off the bed in his haste to get away. And he screams. Screams so sharp that glass shatters, even as he crawls backward, clawing at the cuff. The men careen backwards as the tv explodes, then the windows and the light bulbs, and their ears are bleeding, their mouths moving, but Castiel can't make out any words. He screams as they clamber toward him, faces determined. Castiel curls his arms in close and screams.

They tear at his limbs, forcing his arm out even while Castiel shoves and fights. The force his elbow straight, one man holding his hand and wrist and the other shoving in between Castiel and his arm so that Castiel can't reach or curl around it, pinning him to the floor. Castiel screams. There's a ragged, intense pressure at his wrist, and then—

It takes a moment for Castiel to find his bearings. The man—Sam, it's Sam, Sam and Dean. Sam releases Castiel's arm and Dean pulls up a little, no longer holding him down. Castiel draws his arm in and sits up. His memories don't come flooding into him, don't trickle in one by one. They're just there. They're there, and he can reach them again. Can feel them stretching out behind him, a tangle of threads criss-crossing in a web of memory and being.

Sam and Dean are staring at him, eyebrows pinched, ears bleeding.

Castiel frowns as he remembers causing that bleeding, remembers other ears bleeding, remembers hands tearing at him. He glances down at his wrists. He heals those first. And then reaches out with both hands to heal Sam and Dean at the same time. He'd ruptured their eardrums. Dean's face loses its paleness. He sits up more, hand at his side, pulling at his bandages, eyes on Castiel. "Cas? That you?"

Castiel nods. "My apologies," he says, finding the pain at his own side and back and healing it with a touch, looking down to peel the bandages away. "That was... disconcerting."

Dean lets out a sharp little huff, looking at his side, feeling over the healed skin. He shakes his head and lets his shirt fall back down. "Yeah, I think you need a stronger word there, buddy."

"Are you okay?" Sam asks.

Castiel nods. "I am restored now that the bindings are off, yes."

Sam nods and shoves to his feet, Dean just behind him. "Well, all that screamin' is gonna have somebody runnin', so we need to blow this stand and... go take back the bunker, I guess. Kick the refugees out." His shoulders fall.

Castiel stares at them.

There are stories now. Stories behind all the movements. Heaviness weighs on Dean's back and limbs, making him stiff and slow. He moves like that after a hunt hits a little too close to home.

Sam's smile is strained. It's what follows when Dean moves with all the world pressing down on him. They're tired, both of them. Tired of things never quite working out, of hurting people they want to save. Castiel can't stop staring.

Everything is tied to a chain of memories. Every face, every stance, every sound.

Castiel finds his feet. His eyes follow Sam as Sam crosses the room and his gaze catches on a glint of metal. They threw the cuffs across the room. Castiel moves to retrieve them, staring at the broken words as he holds them.

The bands feel heavy, and sharp at the edges where they were cut. Broken words. Castiel is easy to waylay and capture, isn't he? All it takes is a word. Sam and Dean would never be taken down so easily.

Sam crosses back and stops at Castiel's shoulder. "You okay?" he asks again, softer.

Castiel nods. He shoves the bands into the pockets of his trenchcoat.

Sam pats his shoulder and brushes past him toward where Dean is walking out the door. "Come on." What warm words.

They pile into the car. Dean driving, Sam riding shotgun, Castiel alone in the back.

The reddish brown stain on the back of the passenger seat. Castiel remembers it now. Remembers being chased through the ether nonstop for two terrifying weeks with no reprieve, growing more and more tired, a different group of angels chasing him every moment as they grew tired and got replaced.

Castiel witnessed a small portion of a basketball game once, watched the players switch out and the game be fought with the same fierce energy at every moment no matter how long it went on. Castiel didn't have anyone to switch out with. That's why he lost.

He remembers being caught by brothers and sisters and owing his salvation to the simple fact that they wanted to make him hurt before they killed him. Orange is the new black. Castiel is the new Lucifer. He escaped through sheer determination. They thought they'd torn his wings too much for him to fly, but he proved them wrong.

And after three weeks of being absent, he was back on earth.

He remembers the prayers he heard, while flying and flying and flying for those two weeks. Remembers Dean and Sam's voices falling more and more tired. Remembers that they needed him and he didn't come. Sam always let him know where they were, so Castiel flew there with the last of his strength. He landed just beside the impala where it was parked at a motel.

Back on earth, and his phone was full of messages. Castiel listened as they grew more and more upset. He listened to all of them. _Don't bother coming back_, Dean said, in his last message, _You're off the team, w__e don't need you._

And Castiel pulled the phone down from his ear and stared at it. He was bleeding, he remembers. He was tired and torn and cold. And he remembers staring at the impala for a long time before he opened the door and crawled inside, wings too weary and broken to work. He sat behind the passenger seat. Sat and stared, eyes dry, blinking again and again, longer and longer. He doesn't remember falling asleep. Doesn't remember falling forward into the back of the passenger seat and staining it. He remembers waking when it was early and dark, the sound of wingbeats echoing in his ears, his own wings somewhat more functional. He remembers leaving before Sam and Dean ever saw him and never mentioning that night in the weeks later or months later or years later after they finally took him back.

Castiel is alone in the backseat of the impala again, Dean and Sam up front. He presses two fingers against the stain but it stays, lingering jaggedly. "I remember this now," he tells them.

"Oh?" Sam twists back to look at him. "So what event is it from?"

Castiel can't decide if he wants the stain to stay there forever or be gone forever. "Nothing you knew about." He runs his fingers over the reddish brown. "We..." Loneliness. That's the feeling, isn't it? Sad and dark and cold. "We're not really family, are we?" He says it more like a statement than a question, hand falling from the seat. He doesn't want to feel it anymore.

Dean stops the car.

He slams it over to the side of the road and turns around to look at Cas, silent for a long moment, emotion raging over his face. Strange that Castiel can't read it now that he has his memories. The seconds stretch into minutes and still Dean stares.

Sam is watching and waiting, just as unreadable.

Castiel shifts under the scrutiny. He's done something wrong, he's sure. Maybe they were just waiting for him to realize. To point it out. Just waiting for a chance to get rid of him. He's becoming more and more useless as his powers fade. Maybe he's finally reached the point where they don't want him anymore.

Dean just stares. Stares and stares, green gaze unwavering. Finally, his head moves, gaze twisting past Cas to peer at the stain on the back of the passenger seat. "What event is that from?" he asks, and his voice is demanding an answer.

Castiel refuses to look at it again. "Nothing of importance. It was ages ago."

Sam speaks then, eyes meeting Cas's, "But you remember it. You _remembered_ it. Even when you didn't have any memories to remember it by. That doesn't sound like nothing of importance to me."

Castiel stares back. "Just another one of our 'falling-outs,'" he says, voice stiff.

"Say it again," Dean demands, eyes back on Cas, drawing Castiel's attention toward him.

Castiel hesitates, but does. "...Just another one of our—"

"No." Dean's voice is strong and sharp. "The thing about family."

Castiel's head tilts a little in confusion, eyes squinting. "We're not family," he says slowly, not entirely sure that's what Dean was asking for.

"Fuck that," Dean spits, face curling as he does.

Castiel feels his shoulders tense. He looks to Sam.

Sam is sitting frozen, eyes just a little wider than they were a moment ago. He gives Castiel a minuscule little shrug and shake of the head, almost like he's saying, _you brought this on yourself, I can't help you_.

Dean's voice loses its snap. It's defensive now. Defensive and hurt. "What the hell do you know about family, huh? Your 'family'"—Castiel feels the quotes even if he doesn't see them—"tries to kill you every two seconds, they torture you every time they get a hold of you. Well, I have news for you, Cas, that's not family. _We're_ your friggin' family"—he waves a sharp finger between him and Sam—"and we actually give a shit about you, so you better sit up and tell us what bloody, soul-sucking event took place and made that stain."

The car is a broken sort of silence after that. A shattered one. Castiel stares at Dean in a stunned surprise. Stares without really seeing anything, the words echoing in his skull.

"Cas?" Sam asks, quiet.

Castiel turns at the sound. "Hmm?" he asks back, still trying to catch up.

"What Dean is saying is that we _are _family, all three of us, and what matters to you matters to us, so... do you wanna tell us about that stain?"

"Oh." Castiel finds the stain again, with his eyes and fingers. "You really want to know?" he asks.

Dean raises his eyebrows and nods. Frustratedly, Castiel thinks.

"My—" Castiel cuts himself off and starts over. "The angels chased me through the ether for two weeks, earth time, and when they caught up, they..." the memory of pain is as sharp and deep as the actual pain. Castiel glances up at Dean. "Like you said." He looks back at the stain. "When I got free, I found you; Sam told me where you were. It was night and you were both asleep, I think, I don't actually know. I never went in because... you kept praying to me when I was flying. Asking me for help, and I couldn't come. And you left messages on my phone and... I failed you." That's it, isn't it? Fault. Castiel is always at fault. His fingers stutter tracing over the stain because he's ashamed of this next part. "I—I spent the night in the impala, because I couldn't... I couldn't get anywhere else, my wings were..." Reddish brown. He trails off. "And I guess it stained. I don't why I never cleaned it."

But saying those words, he can feel the why. He wanted them to know. Wanted someone to know how much hurt he went through, wanted them to take notice of him more than just needing him to solve their problems. He left it, knowing how Dean was about the car, expecting him to see it and wonder about it, and they never even noticed. It was a reminder after that. A reminder not to get too close. A reminder that he wasn't needed, wasn't a real part of the team. That he was useful and nothing more, back when he _was_ useful.

The silence feels more broken than before. More fragile. Like glass is splayed out around them and everyone's afraid to move.

"We were dicks, Cas," is what Dean finally says. "We were real dicks to you, and I'm sorry."

Castiel cants his head. "You did nothing wrong," he says.

Sam looks at him, a pinch in his gaze that Castiel can't quite pin down. "Then why didn't you go inside and find us?"

Oh. Castiel feels the press of their eyes a little too intently. He looks at the stain. "You didn't want me." And that... that's not wrong, is it? Not wrong at all. It's just... inherent. It is inherent to Castiel to not be wanted. Not by god, not by angels, not by humans, not by anyone. That just _is._

It takes a long moment for Dean to find the words. "We do now."

Castiel nods, but he can't help but feel like he doesn't understand.

* * *

The ride back is shorter than Castiel remembers it. They draw to a slow stop half a mile from the bunker.

"You sure you're okay?" Sam asks, and Dean turns to see Castiel's response.

Castiel nods.

Dean scans him over. "Powers back the way they were?"

"Yes."

"And memories?"

"Fully restored."

"You good to do this?" Sam asks.

Castiel squints at him, not sure what he means. "Yes?"

Sam seems to realize, and clarifies, "I mean if you're scared, we can—"

"Oh, oh. No. I am good to do this." And he is, really. They caught him by surprise the first time. Overwhelmed him with numbers. Tactics like that only work once.

Sam smiles and nods. "Good."

Dean nods to himself, already shoving the door open. "They come into _our house_..." he grumbles.

Sam and Castiel exit the car a moment behind him.

The security system is already on. Still on. No doubt, the refugees couldn't get it turned off.

Memory thunders through Cas. The first time it turned on.

The glow of the red lights, the blare of the siren that came on just as Dean and Castiel finally managed to get one of the doors open. Darts had flown from one of the walls a few hours earlier and embedded themselves into Sam's arm, the reason he was watching and not helping, sluggish and slurring.

_Lucky you're so damn_ _tall, _Dean had said, pulling them out. _Lucky they didn't hit your heart._

And Castiel couldn't heal him. The security activated more warding, tamping down on Castiel's grace and limiting its power to himself.

They had to turn it off section by section that time, but they learned better ways the longer they stayed.

It's simple, now, to scrape a line through one of the runes and deactivate the whole thing. They wouldn't, only it affects Castiel. Which makes it Castiel's fault. His fault that it's going to be that much more difficult to corner all of the refugees, to take them by surprise.

Except... "What about Joann?"

"Hmm?" Sam asks, straightening back up from where he cut through the line.

"Joann, and Bobby, and Garrett. And the kids, the elders... Are we kicking out all of them?"

Dean and Sam turn to look at him.

"Tell you what," Dean says, "You tell us who came after you and we'll get them out and let the others decide for themselves. Yeah?"

Cas nods.

Walking into the bunker is familiar in a way it wasn't before. There's an added layer of detail, somehow. Castiel is more aware of it; of the thickness of the walls and floors, the scratches and chips and the sound of their shoes as they walk down the stairs.

They separate after that, though Dean seems strangely reluctant. Sam too, actually. But it's the best way, so Castiel wanders down a different hall. He knows the way well even in the dark because he walks the halls at night. Patrols them, actually. Angels don't sleep.

Castiel hears them before he sees them. Talking and arguing and the sound of their voices is annoying.

He turns through a doorway and into a room filled with cots and there they are, some of the refugees, shoving to their feet, faces curling in something akin to disgust and hatred as they see Castiel. Some of them are retrieving weapons from pockets and tables. And their voices combine into an ugly cacophony of noise as they shout at him.

They seem smaller now, the refugees. Inconsequential. It's almost sad.

Castiel has his defenses up, and the Enochian words they spit are a blemish on the language and nothing else.

Castiel is an angel, is heavenly wrath, only... no. No, heavenly doesn't seem to fit. Whether that's because heaven is fallen or because Castiel is, Castiel isn't sure.

The bullets they shoot are problematic with Castiel's weakened grace, but in that moment, he doesn't feel them. There are stories behind some of these faces. But there is a story behind Castiel also, and he is tired of being tormented for what he is.

His wings, broken and barren, flare on the wall behind him for a brief second, though he didn't intend them to. His grace is roaring through him.

The smart ones run. The others get broken limbs as they're thrown, defenseless, into an unfamiliar world.

It's almost fitting.

There are more refugees, and Castiel starts traversing the rooms and halls again, a bitter taste on his tongue. He's marching, really. A soldier on a mission and every form an enemy.

He finds a group in the library. It's Garrett. Garrett and Christian and Maya, the little kids, looking up at him, eyes wide with fear. All the anger and frustration sort of flies right out of him.

* * *

And when the fight is over and the refugees are gone and Dean has wandered off with a grumble about growing old, Sam settles in the map room with his laptop and Castiel comes carefully inside, the metal cuffs in his hands. Sam doesn't look up until Castiel starts talking.

"I wanted to—" Castiel sets the cuffs on the map table—"thank you. For helping me. For coming, when they..." Attacked me? Captured me? Were hurting me? He can't quite find the right phrase. "I wanted to thank you. I know how hard it must have been to lose so many allies like that. It wasn't my intention to get between you. If I did something to make them concerned about my loyalties, I wanted to apologize."

Sam shakes his head. "They were biased against you right from the start, Cas, it wasn't anything you did. And as for helping you, well, that wasn't even a choice."

Everything is a choice. The Winchesters felt obligated because of their history with Castiel to help him. Castiel nods at Sam, but doesn't quite meet his eyes.

Sam hums lowly. A chair scrapes across the floor as he pulls it out. "Sit down, Cas."

Cas sits.

Sam turns to face him. "You know me and Dean were down in the lower levels when it all happened?"

Castiel nods. He had known. It had been a desperate sort of hope that they would come help when they were so close and yet so far.

"We could hear you screaming." Sam pauses, looking at Cas to make sure he understands. "You know how terrifying that was? To hear _you _screaming_._ _Screaming_. I didn't know what it was, but Dean freaked. He dropped the box he was carrying and bolted. He thought you'd been booted out of your vessel and that the bunker's security was attacking you. But as we got higher, we could hear—" Sam gestures to Cas —"hear Jimmy, hear your body, screaming too. That's when we stopped to grab the guns.

"And a minute later, there you were, being dragged down the hallway, screaming bloody murder. I kind of thought they _were_ murdering you. And that, that wasn't a question, Cas, wasn't a 'do we save him, do we not, what are the advantages here?'" Sam shakes his head. "That was terrifying."

Castiel stares at Sam as he talks, Sam staring right back.

"And then you didn't know us. Didn't remember us. And that was almost worse." Sam tilts forward. "Cas, we were sad to force the refugees out, but that didn't even register until you were okay again. And it wasn't a regret forcing them out, that's not what I'm saying, I'd do it all over again. I'm more upset that we didn't see how they were feeling towards you, because it put you at risk. They could've gone after you when we weren't here, could've decided to kill you instead of whatever the hell they were trying to do, and that... Cas, I don't know if I could've handled that." Sam bleeds sincerity. He always does, in the press of his eyes and the minuscule tilt of his head. Sam is sincere. He's a sincere person, honest and real and Castiel is glad to know him. Sam continues, "And I'm sitting here now and I'm starting to wonder, were they... antagonistic toward you? Did they show signs of wanting you gone? Was I just that oblivious?"

Castiel stares. Sam stares back. It takes Castiel a moment to realize. "Oh. Oh, you're _asking_ me."

"Yeah, yeah, I wanna know."

Castiel thinks back on all his interactions. It's not hard to find instances where they'd seemed bothered by him, but he's not sure what extent Sam is looking for. Pushes and shoves and glares and curse-words and murmured Enochian that rarely had any effect. "Does warding the bunker against me count?"

Sam's eyes widen. He opens his mouth to answer but then Castiel remembers.

"Oh, and they shot me a few times, but they said those were accidents."

Sam's eyes widen further. "They shot you?"

Castiel nods. He starts to remember more and more things. "And they somehow found one of your ethereal—angel—blades, and sliced my arm when returning it, though that one I suspected was not an accident. And they put a line of holy fire in the hall and a ring of holy fire inside a few doorways, but some of the kinder refugees came upon me and helped me. Bobby, and Joann, and a few of the children. Apparently those traps were not intended for me."

Sam puts his head in his hands. "Oh my... Cas, why didn't you tell us?"

"I did."

Sam looks up. "You did?"

Castiel nods. "I asked you and Dean about the probability of spontaneous combustion and the malfunction of firearms and about the likelihood of those two events occurring so close to one another repeatedly."

"You—" Sam rubs at his forehead. "Cas, that's not telling us."

"It's not?"

Sam shakes his head almost violently. "No," he says, something frustrated in the tone.

Sam gets Dean.

It takes a while for them to explain. To sort through any misunderstandings and tell Cas that he's supposed to come to them with problems and let them know what the actual problem is rather than asking indirectly or theoretically.

It takes even longer for Castiel to start to understand.

To realize why it matters. That it matters. That he matters.

He matters to Sam and Dean.

Castiel stares as they explain, loving the feel of their voices and their familiar gestures and their fluid interactions. There are countless stories linked to every movement, imbuing an understanding into Castiel as he traces back over them and the emotions and events they are accompanied by.

Sam, talking to Dean when the mark of Cain was latching deeper, leaning towards him, arms moving and moving, face twisted in desperate sort of concern.

Dean, talking to Sam when he was hallucinating Lucifer, careful and forceful at the same time, gaze so strong it feels as though it's breached the skin and found something deeper.

They talk to Castiel like this is something important. Like him being hurt is important.

But there's something else, too, in their manner and tone. Something of shame for not explaining sooner, for not realizing how large the gap of miscommunication was between them. They talk like they don't care what state Cas is in or how capable he is of dealing with it. They talk like they want to know regardless, like they're concerned how things will affect him and they tell him that he doesn't have to deal with it alone even when he can.

Like they want _him_ to be okay and not just his powers.

It's reminiscent of the way Dean talked to Cas when they were in purgatory. Reminiscent of Sam, showing him how to brush his teeth correctly when his abilities waned. Of small things and big things and every sort of thing inbetween. It's reminiscent of the way Castiel thinks family should be, of the kinds of things he's seen in humans when they're with brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers and spouses.

So many memories are pressing against him and filling him and showing him.

So many memories. Memories of god and Anna and Ishim and Naomi and Gabriel, all missing something, contrasting by accounts with the safety and support he feels around the Winchesters.

Castiel has lived for a very long time, so he has a lot of memories. Wars and floods and famine. Heaven and hell, so different and yet so similar. Tiredness and pain and fear and shame, all bleeding across Castiel's mind.

And then there are other memories, interspersed with all the bad ones.

Dean telling Cas to never change. No one else ever wanted that. They wanted to tear Castiel apart and reshape him, wanted him to bend and break and fold to their desires and Dean just said it, so easily, like it didn't mean anything. _Never change, Cas_. Castiel couldn't understand it. Still can't.

Sam thanking him. What a strange thing to do, when Castiel is the 'fall man' for so many, when he is responsible for so many horrors and mistakes. He'd never been thanked before, not really, not sincerely. Never done anything worth thanking. Sam thanked him anyway, thanked him for trying, as though trying was good enough even if he failed. No one ever thought it good enough before. Sam did. Sam saw his effort, his struggle, saw how much he wanted to be able to fix things and thanked him just for wanting it.

A long, long time, Castiel has lived. And he finds that he's only now beginning to understand what it feels like to belong.


End file.
